The great representatives of this new tendency in Church and State were the Jesuits. In the impassioned soul of a Spanish nobleman smouldered the gloomy fire of the new Catholic teaching; amidst ascetic penances, in the restricted intercourse of a small brotherhood, the system was formed. In the year 1540 the Pope confirmed the brotherhood, and shortly after, the first members of the order hastened across the Alps and the Rhine into Germany, and began already to rule in the council of Trent. Their unhesitating determination strengthened the weak, and frightened the wavering. With wonderful rapidity the order established itself in Germany, where the old faith still subsisted along with the new; it acquired favour with the higher classes, and a crowd of adherents amongst the people. Some princes gave up to it the spiritual dominion of their countries, above all the Hapsburgers; and besides them, the German princes of the Church, who could not uphold by their own intrinsic strength, the wavering faith of their subjects: and lastly the Dukes of Bavaria, who for more than a century had been in the habit of seeking advantage for their house in a close union with Rome. When the brotherhood first entered Germany the whole nation was on the point of becoming Protestant; even at the beginning of the Thirty years' war, after losses and successes on both sides, three fourths of Germany were Protestant; but in the year 1650, the whole of the new Imperial state, and the largest third of the rest of Germany, had again become Roman Catholic. So well did these foreign priests serve their Church.
The way in which they worked was marvellous; cautiously, step by step, with endless schemes, and firm determination, never wavering, bending to the storm, and indefatigably returning again, never giving up what they had once begun, pursuing the smallest, as well as the greatest plans at any sacrifice, this society presented the only specimen of an unconditional submission of the will, and surrender of everything to one idea, which did not find expression in individuals, but only in the society. The order governed, but no single member of it was free, not even the General of the order.
The society gained honour and favour; it understood well how to make itself beloved, or indispensable wherever it came; but it never found a home in Germany. Its fearful principle of mystery and secrecy was felt, not only by the Protestants, who endeavoured to break its power by their paper weapons, the flying-sheets, and made it answerable for every political misdeed, whether far or near, but also in the Roman Catholic countries. Even there it was only a guest, influential certainly, and much prized, but from time to time ecclesiastics and laity felt that it was a thing apart from them. All the other spiritual societies had become national,--the Jesuits never. It is not unnatural that this feeling was strongest among the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, for their worldly prospects were often injured by the Jesuits.
Thus from the middle of the sixteenth century two opposite methods of mental cultivation, two different sources of morals and working power have struggled against one another. Devotion and unconditional subjection, against feelings of duty and thoughtful self-assertion; rapid and unhesitating decision, against conscientious doubts; a spirit of energy, working laboriously with much deliberation and scheming after distant aims, against defective discipline; and an urging to unity, against a striving for separation.
These opposing powers appeared everywhere, especially in politics and at the courts of princes. Protestantism in its unfinished shape, though it had elevated the people, was no help to the formation of the character of the German princes; it had raised higher their external power, but it had lessened their inward stability; their youthful training became in general too theological to be practical. However immoral many of them were, they all suffered from conscientious doubts; and there was no ready answer for these doubts, such as the Roman Catholic confessor had always in store for them. The Protestant princes stood isolated; there was no firm bond of union between the Churches of the different states, but much trivial quarrelling and bitter hatred, not only between Lutherans and Reformers, but even amongst the followers of the Augsburg confession; and this diminished the strength of the princes. Whilst the priests of the Roman Catholic Church did their best to unite their rulers, the Protestant ecclesiastics helped to increase the disunion of theirs. So it is not surprising, that the Protestants for a long time stood at a disadvantage in their political struggle with the old faith. The Germans had not yet found, and did not for centuries attain to, the new constitution of State, which transfers the mainspring of government from the accidental will of the ruler, to the conscience of the nation, and which places in a regulated path, citizens of talent and integrity as advisers to the crown; public opinion was still weak, the daily press not yet in existence, and the relation between the political rights of the princes and the people very undefined.
Protestantism had everywhere produced political convulsions, from the peasant war even into the following century. The Reformation had unloosed all tongues, it had given the Germans a freer judgment upon their position as citizens, and had inspired individuals with the courage to fight for their own convictions. The peasant now loudly murmured against exorbitant burdens, the members of guilds against the selfish dominion of the corporations, and the noble members of the provincial estates against the extravagant demands of the sovereign for war expenses. The wild democratic disturbances of 1525 were with Luther's entire approbation easily put down, but democratic tendencies did not therefore cease, and together with them, anabaptist and socialist views spread from city to city. Their teaching, which scarcely forms a system, took a different colouring in different individuals, from the harmless theorist who imagined a community of good citizens without egotism, full of self-abnegation, as did the talented Eberlin, to the reckless fanatic who tried to establish a new Zion at Münster, with an illusive community of goods and wives. These excitements lost their power towards the end of the century, but still continued to ferment among the people, especially in those provinces, where the Protestant opposition of the estates excited the people against the old faith of the rulers of the country. Thus it was in Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper Austria. The more zealously the Hapsburgers endeavoured, by means of the Jesuits, to restore the old faith, the more it was kept in check, even in their own country, by the demands of the opposition in the estates, and the commotions among the people. And well did they perceive the threatening connection of this opposition to their house. Two ways only were therefore open to them, either they must themselves have become Protestants, which they found impossible, or they must have resolutely destroyed the dangerous teaching and pretensions which upset the souls of men everywhere, especially in their own country. The Hapsburger appeared who attempted this.
Meanwhile the spirit of the old Church had been raised, by the great victories which it had gained in other countries. The Protestant princes combined against the threatened offensive movement of the Roman Catholic party, as before at Smalkald, and the Roman Catholic party answered by the formation of the League; but the object at heart, of the League was attack, while that of the Protestants was only defence.
This was the political state of Germany before the Thirty years' war; a most unsatisfactory state. Discontent was general, a mournful tendency, a disposition to prophecy evil, were the significant signs of the times. Every deed of violence which was announced to the people in the flying-sheets, was accompanied by remarks on the bad times. And yet we know for certain that immorality had not become strikingly greater in the country. There was wealth in the cities, and even in the country increase of prosperity; there was regular government everywhere, better order and greater security of existence, luxury and an inordinate love of enjoyment had undoubtedly increased, together with riches; even among the lower strata of the people greed was awakened, life became more varied and dearer, and much indifference began to be shown concerning the quarrels of ecclesiastics. The best began to be gloomy, and even cheerful natures, like the honest Bartholomäus Ringwald, became prophets of misfortune, and wished for death.
And there was good reason for this gloom. There was something diseased in the life of Germany, an incomprehensible burden weighed it down, which marred its development. Luther's teaching, it is true, produced the greatest spiritual and intellectual progress which Germany had ever made through one man, but the demands of life increased with every expansion of the soul. The new mental culture must be followed by a corresponding advance in earthly condition, a greater independence in faith, demanded imperiously a stronger power of political development But it was precisely this teaching, which appeared like the early dawn of a better life, that conveyed to the people the consciousness of their own political weakness, and by this weakness they became one-sided and narrow minded. Germany being divided into countless territories under weak princes, its people everywhere involved in and occupied with trifling disputes, were deficient in that which is indispensable to a genial growth; they needed a general elevation, a great united will, and a sphere of moral duties, which alone makes men pre-eminently cheerful and manly. The fatherland of the Germans extended probably from Lorraine to the Oder, but in no single portion of it did they live like the citizens of Elizabeth or Henry IV.
Thus already inwardly diseased, Germany entered upon a war of thirty years. When the war ended, there was little remaining of the great nation. For yet a century to come, the successors of the survivors were deficient in that most manly of all feelings,--political enthusiasm.